Peter's Gospel

A message from Acts 2:22-41 by Phil Rogers 23/09/07

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When the Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost a crowd gathered and Peter stood up and told them the Good News about Jesus, which is what the word Gospel means. This was the very first “Gospel message” and shows us how the Good News of Jesus should be communicated so that people will believe and turn to the Lord. To help us know what to tell other people about Jesus we are going to look at what Peter said. But first we see that they asked two questions. 1. What does this mean? 2. What should we do? We cannot usually share the gospel unless people ask us questions. We can’t force good news on people who don’t want to know. So how can we get people to ask us questions so that we can tell them the good news?

1. Attention Grabbers.
Interest in the gospel begins by something grabbing people’s attention. Healing, signs & wonders, words of knowledge, our testimony, unexpected behavior or lifestyle, acts of friendship, kindness, compassion, love, and particularly sacrifice. It makes people ask questions. Why do you do that? How did that happen? How did you know that about me?
When someone asks a question, they open a door of opportunity for us to give an explanation. Peter explains the thing that caught their attention; people will need an explanation after they see something unusual that doesn’t fit in with what they expect. Peter begins by answering their questions and quoting the Jewish scripture because these Jews all accept it and would not argue with the Holy Scriptures which they held in high regard. Peter shows that what was happening was a fulfillment of things predicted in the OT. Today most people are not Jewish and do not believe the bible as we do. Can we still use the Bible with people who don't believe it, and for whom it has no authority? People today have no absolutes. But it doesn't mean we can't use the scripture. If we are careful we can quote the Bible, especially about things that are predicted or described in it. “This was predicted in the bible, and it actually happened.” Our experience backs up what the bible says. “We have found that if you do it the bible way - it works….” People see the bible as a book of rules and regulations. rather than a book where God speaks into our faith and lifestyle. By sharing our experience we can tell them how God has spoken to us through the Bible as a warm up.

2. The Message
Peter talks about Jesus. Jesus is the message; it is all about him. But what did Peter say about Jesus?
a. Jesus was a man. Greek not just a person, a bloke. Peter nowhere says that Jesus was God.
b. Jesus performed miracles, proving God was with him, God worked miracles through him (& us).
c. God planned for Jesus to be crucified. Jesus’ crucifixion was current news. But even today most people know Jesus as the bloke who died on a cross so we can have a few days off for Easter. The crucifixion wasn't just bad luck. Jesus deliberately provoked the Jewish leaders so that they would call for his crucifixion by the Roman authorities. If Jesus had been more tactful he wouldn't have been crucified. Why would God want Jesus to die? Why would Jesus be so eager to be executed? Sin caused Jesus death, which was the only way for people to be restored to a relationship with God. “Whom you crucified” Did we kill Jesus? Certainly it was because of each one of us that Jesus had to die.
d. Jesus rose from the dead. This is the focus of Peter’s message. He speaks more about resurrection than the cross. Every Gospel message in the New testament mentions the resurrection, but not all mention the cross. It is not really the gospel unless we tell the good news of the resurrection. Thousands died on Roman crosses, but God only raised one of them, Jesus, to prove that he was ‘the lamb of god that takes away the sins of the world’. If Jesus hadn’t risen again, how would we know it really worked.
1 Cor 15:17 “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.”
Romans 10:9 “..if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
We not only believe that Jesus died for our sins, but that he was raised to life by God - to give us a new life. Believing in the resurrection gives us new life. Believing in the cross is not enough to give new life in Christ. We have to believe in the resurrection.
e. Jesus is at the Father’s right hand as Lord of all. Jesus is Lord! We worship a crucified, risen, and ascended King Jesus. As we bow the knee to our Lord Jesus he baptizes us with the Holy spirit, so fulfilling God's ultimate desire, to have a people full of God on the earth to fulfill his mission.

3. Their response.
a. Cut to the heart, Jn 16:7-8 (read) The Spirit convicts unbelievers of sin, righteousness and judgment. “You crucified.” God's wrath is terrifying!They realised they had sinned and that God was righteous and just, they knew that they deserved God's judgement. God looks for this response in every one before they can be saved. Without a true realisation of sin we cannot be saved.
b. What must we do? People don't instinctively know how to respond to God. They knew they had to do something! But what? Is trying to live a good life, doing good deeds enough? Most people today think it is BUT this is not enough. There is nothing we can do to earn forgiveness. All God calls us to do is ‘repent and be baptized’. Simple isn't it! That is all we have to do too. When we respond by turning way from our sins and demonstrate this by washing away our sins in baptism, we are completely forgiven. When we have been washed and forgiven we can now receive the Holy Spirit into our bodies, which is God’s plan of having a people full of God being fulfilled.
c. They all received the Holy Spirit. Was this only for the first Christians? For the Jews? ‘You and your children,’ For all non-Jews living at that time, ‘those who are far off’, or was it for US, ‘everyone the Lord God calls’. That includes us! The Spirit wasn't just for the early church, it was for the church today, The power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us today. So if we are filled with the HS, we can do even greater things than Jesus did, when he was on the earth. This is amazing. Are we living by the power of the Holy Spirit? Did you receive the Spirit when you believed or when you were baptised? It is not automatic when you become a Christian, It is like birthday present, something you have asked for and have been given. We have to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit and then we need to take the gift and unwrap it.